Discover the power of progressions in Astrology, unlocking your inner evolution & navigating your destiny with the celestial roadmap of life.
There are many tools that astrologers can lean into to predict potential energy forecasts, much like meteorologists use a variety of models to predict the weather. Secondary progressions, which I’ll refer to as progressions in this article, is a potent predictive technique that can gauge the evolution of your inner world and the internal resources you may draw on to face external conditions.
Like a blueprint of your inner growth, understanding your progressed cycle gives key insights into the directions you’re pulled to grow towards, the type of relationships that feel fulfilling and even your energy and motivation levels in certain time periods. Focusing on this symbolic rhythm can show why sometimes you feel like you’re swimming against the current, such as leaving a career in your midlife or choosing singledom at a time when you’re expected to get married and have children.
Progressions make use of symbolic time, when one period of time signifies for another. Progressions are a day-for-a-year formula, much like maps shrunk down from true-life scale to make them easier to work with. Essentially, progressions put a microscope onto the stellar energy of the first 80 or 90 days of your life. Like watching a movie in slow motion, all the small nuances and gestures are brought into focus so each can be studied and understood more easily.
While this technique can be traced back to the Hellenistic Greek astrologer Vettius Valens in the 2nd century, modern neuroscience is reinforcing the importance of this technique. Research shows that the first three months after a baby is born is when foundational neural pathways are formed, and events and experiences in this time strongly shape emotional strength and social ability levels in children.
The other beauty of progressions is the unique lens it gives into the experiences you face and directions you may choose to take. A more individual take than other predictive techniques, it takes the specific individual nature of your birth chart and moves it forward, including the Ascendant, Midheaven, even House cusps. Unlike transits, which map external events and relationships that can impact your world, progressions relate to your internal world and how it evolves as you interact with the world around you.
Progressions work with all the planets and points in your chart, though the focus is mostly on the Sun, the Moon and inner planets (Mercury, Venus and Mars). From Jupiter out, planetary movement is so slow in this technique that they seem
to stand still.
Solar power
Due to secondary progressions adopting the day-for-a-year formula, the days used are those immediately following your birth. This means that whatever planetary aspects and influences were active 10 days after your birth will influence you when you are 10 years old. If you are 35, 42 or 57 years old, it’s the planetary activations when you were 35, 42 or 57 days old that influence your life now.
Let’s look at a quick example. Singer Delta Goodrem went through a period of heightened change in 2010 and 2011, leaving Australia to push for success in the US and breaking off a long-term engagement. She was 25 to 26 years old.
To work out her progressions for that time in her life, you’ll need access to an ephemeris. If you don’t have a printed copy, Google Swiss Ephemeris and your birth year for a free online version (in this case 1984, for the Delta Goodrem example).
First, we look back to when Delta was born, 9 November 1984. Then note where her personal planets have moved to 25 to 26 days after she was born. During this time, the progressed sun arrived at 12 Sagittarius, where it activated her natal Uranus at that degree. The combined energy of the progressed sun conjunct natal Uranus, which includes freedom, restlessness and breaking away from the past, describes her life and experiences 25 to 26 years later.
Any predictive triggers involving your Sun can have a dramatic influence on your personality, soul and life experiences.
When making connections between the planets and the physical body, the Sun is linked to the heart — an organ so central that without its function, there is no life. This reflects the centrality and importance of the Sun as a centrepiece around which all else revolves. The heart or centre of who you are can be shown by your natal sun, its sign, house and aspects. The path of the progressed sun through the Zodiac and around your chart can reveal how your you-ness unfolds and evolves throughout your life.
Anything the secondary progressed sun touches, or is touched by through aspect, affects your core self. Pay special attention to when your progressed sun:
- Changes sign and house
- Makes an aspect to a natal planet or angle
- Gains or loses motivation and vitality, through either sign or house changes
- Crosses or makes a conjunction to an angle
These factors combine to reveal when you might experience an inner shift that can lead to a meaningful outer change relating to your image, appearance, attitudes and interests. As the secondary progressed sun moves, the ways in which you strive to express your light will evolve.
Based on progressed movement, your progressed sun will change zodiac signs once every 30 years. The age at which your sun first progresses, or moves into a new sign, will be unique to you. This age is determined by a simple calculation, which involves subtracting the degree of your sun at birth from 30. Once you know this age you can simply add 30 to it to determine when your sun will next change signs.
For example, Dionne Warwick has the Sun at 20’40” in Sagittarius. It’s appropriate in this instance to round up to 21 degrees, then subtract that number from 30. She was around 9 years old when her Sun first changed signs by progression.
Using the one-degree-a-year formula for the secondary progressed sun, Dionne’s progressed sun would have also changed signs around 39 years of age and again around 69 years of age.
Your progressed sun will first change signs at some point between birth and age 30. This formula works for the progressed sun only.
In your birth chart, the symbol for the Sun is the circle with a dot in the centre. The degree is the number with the circle (not the apostrophe) near it.
Changing light
Your progressed sun changing signs will bring a significant shift in energy and will describe the end of an era. It’s also a time of rebirth as you undergo a profound evolution, especially around your personality and identity.
As your progressed sun, which symbolises identity and essence, settles into a new sign, your personality will be influenced by a new element and modality. Your interests, habits and hobbies will need to updated to reflect these changing influences. This can feel a bit like having a personality transplant, in that you become a new and refreshed version of yourself. This can bring latent talents to the surface or mark the end of a longer chapter in your life journey.
Your soul may seek experiences it previously had no interest in, and those things which always fulfilled you may no longer seem satisfying. You don’t become this new sign, rather your inherent personality or the influences of your sun sign at birth will now be filtered into the world through the lens and qualities of this new sign.
When your progressed sun changes sign, be curious about the new you waiting to emerge. Allow yourself to consciously end or complete things. Give yourself the freedom to explore new interests.
The progressed sun, Leo and the houses
If you are familiar with your chart and astrology, consider whether your progressed sun gains strength or weakness through its sign change. Does it move into a sign of its rulership, exaltation, detriment or fall?
The progressed sun is in rulership in Leo and in exaltation in Aries. The progressed sun moving into these signs can bring stability and confidence, as well as more consistency in key areas of your life.
The progressed sun is in detriment in Aquarius and in fall in Libra. The progressed sun moving into these signs can bring a greater focus on other people, relationships and your community. It brings a time of variety and change, when you’re less focussed on routines and more interested in connection, service and support.
You can also consider the house ruled by Leo in your birth chart. As its ruling planet, the Sun, adopts a whole new way of being, new opportunities and different priorities can emerge around that area of life.
Let’s look at the example of David Bowie, who was a Capricorn, born with the Sun at 17 degrees. This means at age 13, in 1960, his sun progressed into Aquarius, then, in 1990 at around 43 years of age, his sun progressed into Pisces.
Bowie had a Leo descendant, or 7th House, the part of the chart ruling relationships. This means the Sun ruled or described his relationship experiences. His first marriage, during the progressed sun in Aquarius, where the Sun is less stable due to being in its detriment, was unsettled and full of unpredictable events and experiences.
Within 12 months of his sun progressing into Pisces and out of this unsteady influence, he met Iman and married her within two years. True to the deeply romantic Piscean way, Bowie fell in love with her instantly, saying afterwards, “I couldn’t sleep for the excitement of our first date. That she would be my wife, in my head, was a done deal.” They remained happily married until his death.
In your chart, the Sun will rule whatever house has the sign of Leo on the cusp. This might be your 10th House of career, your 4th House of home and family or your 11th house of friends. Whatever house it is, your experience of the topics associated with your sun/Leo house will change as the progressed sun changes signs.
Working with the progressed moon
The ancients linked the Moon to vitality and fortune and saw its light inextricably linked to our own motivation and energy levels. The Moon is the heartbeat of the sky, translating the light of the Sun and drawing in other stellar influences. In the 29.5 days it takes to complete each of its phases, she waxes and wanes in energy, grows in light then heads into darkness. Those energies are then reflected here on the Earth. If we live to 90 years, the progressed moon will have the opportunity to complete three full cycles around our natal chart.
The Moon changes sign every two and half days, so every two and half years, a progressed moon will change signs, bringing a different flavour to your emotional landscape. When in fire signs you may crave more action and energy in your life, in earth signs more stillness and practical accomplishments. The years in air signs we crave knowledge, information and conversation, and in water signs, intuition and sensitivity increases and a quieter pace feels comfortable.
A progressed moon will also change houses, drawing emotional emphasis to the topics of the area of your chart it currently occupies. For example, when the Moon transits our 7th House, relationships come into focus and I often see clients meet a significant partner or choose to marry at this time.
Jane Fonda spent all three of these periods in her life dating widely, then marrying once the Moon moved into her 8th House; or giving up on relationships altogether, as she stated in 2018.
The Moon through the 10th House is often a period of focusing on career and public image. When Jane’s progressed moon was in her 10th House in 1968-71, she became more prominently known and critically acclaimed. Interestingly, it’s there now, when she’s in another career peak of television and movie projects, at the grand age of 85.
The progressed lunar phases
Like the Moon in the actual sky, a progressed Moon moves through eight phases in the sky, each with its own level of light, energy and vitality as it changes position in relationship to the Sun. Each phase lasts approximately 3-4 years and acts as a backdrop against which to gauge other predictions. As the Moon is the fastest mover in progressions, I find focusing on the phase a progressed moon is in a powerful predictor of energy and motivation.
The phases new to gibbous are waxing, when the tide of vitality is coming in and we are able to build towards fulfilment under the full phase. From the full to the balsamic (dark) phase, vitality is draining out and we are more focused on synthesis and release, then preparing for the next phase.
Another attribute of the lunar phase to note is the cycle of light. From first quarter to last quarter is when light is most obvious. We may spend those phases actively engaged with the world, or being noticed more by others. The darker phases are when we tend inwards. The phases are also deemed more or less active depending on the relationship the Moon forms to the Sun. The more active phases of new, first quarter, full and last quarter have more action, energy and dynamism, while the crescent, gibbous, disseminating and balsamic are quieter and more about integrating the lessons and challenges of the previous stage.
New Moon phase (0 to 45 degrees)
This phase is a significant time in your life, occurring twice or perhaps three times in your lifetime. It signifies the new beginnings of a cycle that will last 29-30 years. As the Moon reflects a sliver of the Sun’s light, this phase is about starting afresh as energy turns towards new beginnings, like seeds coming alive beneath the soil in the first warmth of spring. The sign and house this New Moon phase occurs in offers a background theme for the whole 30-year cycle ahead.
It may be external shifts or your internal yearnings that cause change, but whatever is at play, expect to be in a different place than where you have been in recent years, even decades. Your vitality begins to build after the quiet withdrawal of the balsamic phase. You may find more energy or excitement in reconnecting socially or initiating new projects. Energy in this phase can be on and off, and easily dispersed, so beware of starting too much or pushing too fast in this phase. Fortunes may feel like they are turning forwards, though this phase is still predominately dark so conserve your energy and don’t expect overnight success. Instead, know seeds planted well now and tended to in the next seven years will bear good fruit.
For Jane Fonda, her first New Moon started at 12 years of age. Not long after her world changed forever when her mother died and her father quickly remarried. Twenty-nine years later, under her next New Moon phase, she starred in one of her most well-known roles as Judy in the film 9-to-5. While filming this movie, Jane formed a lifelong friendship with co-star Lily Tomlin, a relationship that Jane credits with shaping who is she today.
Crescent phase (45 to 90 degrees)
In this phase, the Moon’s light is growing, bringing more energy and confidence. What was started in the previous stage begins to emerge and, depending on the results, you may wish to put in more effort or start again. For that reason, I see this stage as experimental, a chance to enhance and improve outcomes as light continues to build. This phase has a natural excitement around what is possible when results first start to show themselves. It’s a good period to follow the breadcrumbs of your curiosity to see where potentials lie.
Dedication, consistency and persistence are good traits to develop in this phase, as while some things fail others will grow, and staying focused on what is working will help you if you’re feeling discouraged by what didn’t work.
In her Crescent Moon phase, from 1982 to 1986, Jane was experimenting with her fitness career, after an injury in her New Moon phase shifted her from ballet to aerobics. Her fitness videos became a huge success, and the profits enabled her activist work in her next phase. In a more recent Crescent phase in 2012, Jane moved into television, a media she had only dabbled in before. Guest starring in The Newsroom was an exciting experience for Jane and went on to see her nominated for five major awards, winning two of them. The dedicated work she put in for the three years of this phase led to building the current career resurgence she is experiencing today.
First Quarter phase (90 to 135 degrees)
This phase is the most obviously active as innate urges arise to